Writing Retreat | The Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center at Friday Harbor Labs

Last summer, my partner (Raymond Krohn) and I were lucky enough to spend time as visiting scholars at the Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center (HRWC) at the Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL) on San Juan Island. The center is administered by the University of Washington’s College of the Environment. Since its inception in 2000, it has hosted writers, artists, scientists, and other creatives from around the world.

For two weeks, we stayed in a picturesque cottage situated within the evergreen forests and rugged coastlines that are a hallmark of the San Juan Islands. Mornings were spent in quiet contemplation observing the small creatures in tidepools (tiny wonders!) or the occasional harbor seal and otter who sometimes swam close to shore.

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Workshop | Voices of Water at MING Studios

This month, I had the opportunity to teach an environmental writing workshop at MING Studios in response to the themes of RIPARIA, a multimedia collaborative art exhibition that explores our relationship with water. RIPARIA is the brainchild of the Ecogeoglyphic Observatory, a Boise-based eco-collective.

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Residency | Cape Disappointment State Park (Long Beach Peninsula)

In May and early June, I spent time at Cape Disappointment State Park as an artist-in-residence in the Sou’wester Artist Residency Program. I spent a week hiking through coastal rainforests, headlands, beaches, and coves on Cape Disappointment and the Long Beach Peninsula.

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Residency | The Rice Place (Oregon)

In May, I spend a week at The Rice Place, an artist residency in Oregon. The Rice Place was named for novelist and memoirist Clyde Rice, who published his first book (the memoir A Heaven in the Eye) at eighty one.

portrait of clive rice
Clyde Rice at The Rice Place

The residency took place at Rice’s former home, a 1930s farm house situated within 10 acres of farmland along the Clackamas River, views of lush foliage from every window.

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Reading | Storyfort 2023

In March, I read at the Poetry & Mimosas event at Ochos for the Storyfort literary festival (one of the “forts” of Treefort Music Festival).

I read environmental poetry from an ongoing collection I wrote for a National Park residency. You can hear a recording of poems from the collection on Episode 72 of the MING Studios My On Mondays podcast series hosted by JR Rivero Kinsey.

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Reading | Flipside Fest & Death Rattle Literary 9th Anniversary Showcase

I recently participated in two literary readings: Flipside Fest in September and the Death Rattle 9th Anniversary Showcase in November.

Flipside Fest is a music and art festival put on by the Duck Club in Garden City, Idaho as a way to harness the energy from the Treefort Music Festival that happens in Idaho every spring.

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